How to shape your eyebrows

The first rule in how to shape your eyebrows is:

You can only work with what you have. On these eyebrows, she is fairly thin on the ends and has rather straight eyebrows. I want to shape them up a bit, but not give an extreme arch.

You'll have to do the same, and work with what you currently have. You can remove hair or use pencil to make them look fuller, but you can't instantly grow them. The following steps will help you decide what hair to keep, or to remove.

The general rule of thumb for eyebrow shaping is that if you took a ruler to the inner corner of your eye, that is about where the brow should begin. If you like a more natural look, you can always leave a bit more hair. It's better to leave more than not, you can always take more away.

Eyebrow Shaping Tips:

·       You have wide set eyes (too far apart), then you could leave a few extra hairs outside of the above line towards the nose of to make eyes "appear" closer. 

·       You have close set eyes (too close together), then you could leave a few extra hairs inside of the above line towards the eyes, to make them "appear" farther.

As you can see our model's eyebrows already go a bit further in toward the eye.

On deciding on how to arch your eyebrows one of the most important part of designing the brow, we are going to use other features for a reference. For our model here, I've decided on a small arch for her eyebrow shape because she doesn't have a lot of eyelid, and she has straight brows.

So placing a ruler (or something else straight like an eye liner) on the tip of her nose as a reference, and taking the ruler over her pupil brings me to a section of her brow that you see above. This is going to be the "peak" or highest point of her arch.

Another reference point is the top of the nostril, still aiming for over the middle of the pupil for a medium arch, but the far side of the pupil for a large arch. (Tip: right nostril for right eye, left nostril for left eye).

Place the end of a ruler at the outer nose and put on the corner of the eye, this is where the brow should end. On the model above, she's right on target. Usually, it's only a slight bit if women are outside this last line.

Eyebrow Shaping Tips:

Most of the time over-plucking has resulted in brows not meeting this end point. If that's the case for you, use a brow pencil like Billion Dollar Brows Universal Brow Pencil (buy direct) to fill in your brows until they grow out.

If your brows are sparse because of stress, aging or thyroid issues, try an eyebrow revitalizer. My pick is LiBrow which I can personally say it does work.

You can see the perfect eyebrow shape already in place for this model, showing the three lines being used in her design. Notice when someone shapes the brows correctly, the eyes are framed nicely. If the first thing you notice on someone is their eyebrows, then they're not the right shape.

Another great tool to use to get that perfect shape is The Brow Buddy. Now, let's get back to our original model's eyebrows. We'll start her designing.

If you want to learn how to shape your eyebrows like the pros, then trim them if they need it. I've already trimmed my models eyebrow, to our right. You can see the difference this has already made.

A big mistake women make is not trimming their brows. When the eyebrow hair is long, sometimes women end up taking out too much hair when they really needed to take out bulk. So trim first!

Here's how to tell if you need to trim: Brush your eyebrows straight up, and if there are any hairs longer coming out of your natural shape on top, then trim it.

Yes, you can do this on your own, it's very simple. Use a fine-tooth regular comb or an eyebrow brush to push eyebrow hair up, and then just trim what is outside the shape with small scissors (preferably eyebrow scissors). If you have rather bushy eyebrows, then you'll need to take additional steps to remove more bulk, watch the eyebrow trimming step-by-step.

Now, create your eyebrow arches and choose exactly which hair you will be removing. If you're tweezing, put concealer or white eyeliner on the hairs that need to go: underneath, the middle, and on top so you don't wander off. Read complete guide to tweezing brows.

For our model above, I'm only taking off hair underneath her brow. She has nothing in the middle to remove, and no stray hairs above the shape. We're going to continue to work on her right eye so you can see the difference in the final result.

Eyebrow Arching and Shaping Tips:

If you take hair off the top of the eyebrow, don't go into the main shape. Just take the stray hairs outside the shape.

Here you can take a look at the finished eyebrow shape on our right, compared to the one on our left that hasn't had any work. Such a difference!

The extra effort prepping your brows will pay off in the result. Once you have the exact shape you like, the upkeep will be easy. You will be able to see clearly what has grown in and needs to be removed.